YouTube is slowly committing suicide, by systematically removing the only content it has that is actually worth watching.

NYTimes.com reports that YouTube is removing copyrighted clips at an exponential rate in preparation for Google’s purchase of the site. Once this purge is complete, YouTube’s content will consist mainly of drunken teenagers injuring themselves/others and hipster douchebags ranting about whatever topic it’s cool to be angry about this week. Is that really worth the $1.65 billion in stock that Google is forking over?

My own YouTube account was unceremoniously disabled over the weekend, presumably due to the fact that all of ‘my’ videos were produced by major broadcasting companies¹; was I really harming the profit margins of these multi-billion dollar companies by hosting a few short clips on YouTube?

This isn’t the first time that something I uploaded has been removed; I edited a clip of Ricky Gervais singing on The Simpsons in March and put it on their site. I received an email a week or so later notifying me that the video had been deleted due to copyright infringement; my own (conspiracy) theory is that the person who left me a comment to the effect of “please can you email me the whole episode” was sufficiently offended by my curt negative response that they reported my video out of spite.

As far as alternatives to YouTube go, I’ve been using a combination of Jeroen Wijering’s Flash Video Player and Riva FLV Encoder on Quad Lasers for the last six months, and highly recommend it to anyone looking to have flash video content on their site².

Notes

¹ My account was mainly being used to host videos of music promos and live performances for WeLoveCelebs.

² Of course, this method requires that you have adequate hosting and bandwidth at your disposal.

Adult Swim are posting clips from the Chrome Children DVD on their site each week, and I really must insist that you watch the video for Nothing Like This, J Dilla’s contribution - which to my ears is also the finest track on the album.

Keep an eye out for the rest of the Chrome Children videos as they are uploaded each week on AdultSwim.com.

Laura took this impromptu photograph of Michael and I earlier this week. I can’t help thinking that we look like we’re in a promotional shot for a procedural crime drama about a human/feline detective team - we could call it “Law & Order: Special Kittens Unit”.

Evolt.org’s Browser Archive is, unsurprisingly, an archive of old versions of pretty much every web browser that ever existed, and seems like it could be a very useful place for web developers who need testing tools.